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This article is a good illustration of what's wrong with the current predominant approach in biology — it's all about genes and proteins, it's all way too reduc

This article is a good illustration of what's wrong with the current predominant approach in biology — it's all about genes and proteins, it's all way too reductionist to yield any meaningful higher-level outcomes. It's like trying to understand and manipulate an alien technology equivalent to a computer running a React web app, except you're only ever looking at and manipulating individual transistors in the CPU. As Michael Levin said it, "reductionism is aptly named, it reduces what you can do". Do check out his research btw, it's some seriously impressive stuff. According to him, cancer, in particular, is simply a result of a group of cells electrically disconnecting from the surrounding tissue. He was able to force them to reconnect in one of his experiments, curing the tumor without killing anything.

alan-hn 2y ago
Its interesting how your example perfectly illustrates reductionism in action. There are so many things that can go wrong, which is why cancer is such a heterogeneous group of diseases. There are many mutations that can happen which can lead to cancer growth and they have nothing to do with electrophysiology.
- grishka 2y ago
  That's the thing with Michael's research, he injected an oncogene into a tadpole, and then made the tumor cells reconnect with the surrounding tissue and become healthy again, all while the gene was still strongly expressed.
  - alan-hn 2y ago
    Again reductionism in action "an oncogene" is so vague that its meaningless. Do you have any idea how many oncogenes there are and how many different things they do?
cyberax 2y ago
Levin's work smells like bullshit. And it's also just as reductionist, trying to represent everything as electrical interactions.
- grishka 2y ago
  Not everything, only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way. And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect, because that's essentially what it is, it's cells "forgetting" that they are part of a larger whole that has goals more important than their own ones.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Not everything, only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way. That's not true. We know a lot of molecular-level details about morphogenesis. The classic Sonic Hedgehog signalling is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein Is it possible that electric potentials might play some role in some organisms? Certainly. However, we know for sure that they don't act alone. Chemical signalling definitely happens. > And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect It doesn't, really. Even assuming Levin's models are correct, most cancers have nothing to do with morphogenesis. Cancers are caused by internal genetic cell malfunctions, that stop them from reacting to external signals properly. It doesn't really matter if signals are electric or molecular ones. The default state for normal human cells is "dead". If you take a random cell and put it in a Petri dish, it'll likely die. Most cells need to receive constant molecular signals from nearby cells to _not_ die. Once this mechanism is broken, you get cancer.

alan-hn 2y ago

Its interesting how your example perfectly illustrates reductionism in action. There are so many things that can go wrong, which is why cancer is such a heterogeneous group of diseases. There are many mutations that can happen which can lead to cancer growth and they have nothing to do with electrophysiology.

grishka 2y ago
That's the thing with Michael's research, he injected an oncogene into a tadpole, and then made the tumor cells reconnect with the surrounding tissue and become healthy again, all while the gene was still strongly expressed.
- alan-hn 2y ago
  Again reductionism in action "an oncogene" is so vague that its meaningless. Do you have any idea how many oncogenes there are and how many different things they do?

cyberax 2y ago

Levin's work smells like bullshit. And it's also just as reductionist, trying to represent everything as electrical interactions.

grishka 2y ago
Not everything, only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way. And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect, because that's essentially what it is, it's cells "forgetting" that they are part of a larger whole that has goals more important than their own ones.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > Not everything, only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way. That's not true. We know a lot of molecular-level details about morphogenesis. The classic Sonic Hedgehog signalling is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein Is it possible that electric potentials might play some role in some organisms? Certainly. However, we know for sure that they don't act alone. Chemical signalling definitely happens. > And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect It doesn't, really. Even assuming Levin's models are correct, most cancers have nothing to do with morphogenesis. Cancers are caused by internal genetic cell malfunctions, that stop them from reacting to external signals properly. It doesn't really matter if signals are electric or molecular ones. The default state for normal human cells is "dead". If you take a random cell and put it in a Petri dish, it'll likely die. Most cells need to receive constant molecular signals from nearby cells to _not_ die. Once this mechanism is broken, you get cancer.